I have 2 aerial's. My main aerial is for 80m and is a homebrew doublet. It is approx 130 feet long, the centre is approximately 50 feet from the ground, one end is about 40ft from the ground and the other is about 30ft from the ground, it runs almost perfectly East to West as it is the only way to get it into the property.  It is made from marine grade stainless wire and the feeder is spaced 4 inches apart with custom clear dacralon insulators spaced every 20 inches. The whole aerial is made from 4 individual pieces of wire, an identical length pair for the feeder and an identical length pair for the elements.  All terminations and connections are made using swaged stainless hardware.  The centre support is offset by approximately 15ft to avoid interaction with the feeder and has a small pylon type ceramic insulator at the top.  At the base of the feeder is a Palstar 4:1 balun rated at 4KW to enable me to use the aerial on more bands, also a choke balun to make extra sure no RF finds its way back to the shack and then coax runs round the perimeter of the garden and into my shack.  My second aerial is a Diamond X-5000 2m, 70cm and 23cm vertical which is approx 40ft from the ground and allows me to access most of the repeaters in a 75-100 mile radius without any problems.

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My aerial is made from marine grade stainless cable and fittings for a reason. After using copper based wire and having it destroyed beyond repair three times by the squirrels, I finally had enough. I had to make it squirrel proof! Now hopefully there are lots of squirrels running round with blunt or broken teeth. I have noticed no difference in performance between the copper and stainless wire, the SWR has remained the same and TX / RX reports have not changed.

Update: My aerial is still going strong after 18 months of use, no signs of squirrel damage!

I have an idea to insulate the base of the centre support (which is aluminium scaffold tubing) and extend it to approximately 66 feet. I can then feed this against ground for a vertical aerial.  All I have to do is to obtain permission from the station manager ???

A friend of  mine sent me a video clip of an idea to relocate the vermin, it made me cry with laughter, click the animated link below to view.